You did read the article wrong. CmdrTaco said that they were giving it away (in the free beer respect, not the free speech respect.) His comment on Open Source was that it was driving other Operating Systems to also be free - and asks the question of when will it finally become 'Free Speech' (IE - Open Sourced.)
The solution I found was that my day job supports the OSS development concept.
My day job involves working with PLC programming, MMI (ok, now called HMI) design and development. Ever since I've been there (6 years now) we've supported the Open Source theory on things - when we do a project, we give the customer the source code to the project when we are done. Note that we supported Open Source, not GPL
One development package that we use costs $7800 per development unit, and $3200 per runtime - and it's getting more expensive. So, I wrote up a very long proposal for a project called Jaguar HMI that explains what the GPL is, how it applies to us, and the benefits.
Less than a week later, development of Jaguar HMI became part of my job, along with setting up all the resources for the project, etc.
So, my suggestion is - look towards companies who have to rely on that particular type of software to survive. Once they see the benefits, and you sell them on yourself, it's possible to set up an arrangement like I have.
I can't decide - is this a good or bad thing? I mean, Bill G. was never THAT great of a software designer in the first place. Why not just consider retirement instead? What's worse - Bill running the entire company, and other's doing the job of design, or, Balmer running the company, and Bill getting his grubbies on to designing the overall systems concepts?
Plus, didn't he used to say that he could never see anyone above the age of 50 at the helm of MS? I thought Balmer was older than that 'limit'.
Speak for yourself on this one, Talisman. I'm engaged, so I get sex pretty much whenever. I've always had a very active sex life, dispite the fact I've been a hacker (not cracker) since age 12 back in the C64 & Vic20 eras.
Just because someone is a geek doesn't mean they don't have an active sexlife. Or even more - that they are interested in thier sexuality. I kinda think your thinking in terms of a steriotype that doesn't really exist.
If this is true - Big If - then this could really be a cool thing!
Of course, there are quite a few concerns here - how much of the system is being opened up? What license? Is this Free Speech AND Free Beer, or just Free Speech?
Personally, if the license only allowed people who purchased OS X to have access to the source, that would still be a damned cool thing, IMHO.
But, before I can get really excited about this, there needs to be more information. Right now, it's just a somewhat shapeless rumor. When Apple actually releases something, then everyone can comment on the real situation, instead of rumors.:-/
Wow - I've been complaining about the quality of/. reporting for a while now. I hate to say it but - this is one of the better pieces I've seen/. do in quite a while. The interview with the attourney was good, and I'm glad to see that/. followed up on the story to give us both sides of the story.
If this is an example of what/. reporting is going to look like in the future - the future looks good! Hats off to Rob & the gang!
As for what happened to them - well, there is some case here (microphones and cameras imbeded into other devices.) However, the question is - did they sell these as 'home security' devices, or evesdropping devices? That would seem to make a huge difference to me!
Not nessisary - if you look closer, it is actually an AC posting, and they just made the message look like it contained a/. header - but just above that, there's the normal header. Hemos's password hasn't been cracked:-) (Yet - I'm sure %&$^ will get arround to trying and succeeding someday.)
hehhee - That's one of my 'research projects' I've been working on for my little company.
Wouldn't it be great if the scripts and API were able to survive across platforms, multiple game versions, and even multiple games? IE - don't like the sniper rifle in UT? No problemo - just load in the Rail Gun from Quake III instead! Nice object oriented scripts that talk to a common API that more than one game uses. It's a great concept - I'm not so sure it's as good in execution.
The other thing is, that would allow mod developers to create 'universal' mods that work on more than one game. I find that to be a cool concept.
Of course, there's problems. Games are developed with a specific 'vision' behind them. Importing an object from a previous game or competing game may unbalance things considerably. However, that's not that big of a deal, in a way - in a situtation like online gaming where the server admin determins what stays and what goes, he is allowed to tweak the ballance however he wants.
The other problem is - even with a common API, how does that determine what the real effect of a weapon is going to be in future generations of games? IE - the new monster is immune to fire, but, the flamethrower from QIV only passes information in terms of damage, not in terms of fire damage. There's quite a few situations where this would simply screw up. (I've seen ways around quite a few of the issues - problem is, you have to continuously expand the API in an attempt to come up with all situations, or limit yourself to what the API supports in the next game. Both choices suck.)
One thing I've looked at was for 3D based stuff, just using the Crystal Space 3D engine. I put whatever I need that it doesn't alread support in there. I benefit from not having to develop and engine from scratch, and Crystal Space benefits from the stuff I add. Then I suppose the only thing I'm worrying about the rights to will be the actual gameplay, and the datafiles (art, music, levels, etc.). And of course, the upside is, it's nice and portable to just about everywhere.
However - that does mean a section is still closed - the actual gameplay (the 3D engine only does so much for you.) And that's only for 3D stuff. Any good 2D solutions out there that I don't know about?
This is a question I once tried to get posted as an "Ask Slashdot" - what does the Linux commmunity want from game developers?
For instance - it's pretty hard to release the entire commerical game as Open Source, and expect it to make money. I agree with RMS's "Free Speech" aspect, but, also realize that it's a business for making money. (I've got my own little game company, looking at doing more and more recently...) How should a game developer make the ballance between Open Source, and the business of making money based off of entertament value of the software produced?
Is there a good solution for game developers who want to start supporting Linux, who want to 'do the right thing' and start letting people get access to the source, without loosing tons of cash over it?
I saw GalaxyQuest last night with my fiance - we were dying laughing! It is a great spoof - to me, the best Star Trek & various S/F series spoof yet. I was never a fan of Space Balls - it forced every line to be a spoofed line from Star Wars. That's no fun to me. This managed to have some life of it's own. Really good movie, and for once, I agree with a/. movie review!
The answer of running Linux on a 386 w/4MB of RAM isn't a lie. However, I can understand your frustration here - that's the minimum it's gonna run on for doing something like a very simple router (heck, boot the thing off of a floppy - no need for a Hard Drive!) What do you want to do with the machine? I know you say you want a server for home, but, is that server going to be serving web pages, running Samba to act as a Win 95 file server, running a Quake III server from time to time, etc? Give more details about what you want to do - then you can get some better answers. It's not an insult, just wanting to be sure that people know what you are looking at doing with it, so that I or whoever else can give you some really good informed answers, instead of crap answers like "Oh, that old 386 will run it fine!" Anyway - give more info, and maybe people can give ya better answers more along the lines of what you are looking for.
From what I gather, it's a fictional piece, dedicated to CmdrTaco and Hemos. The main characters in the book are Jessie and Eric - the/.'ers are Rob and Jeff.
Hehhehe - Ooops! I messed up on this one too - I took it at face value, and passed the same info on to my fiance. After all the times I've told people to check the facts before forwarding information, I end up doing it myself. *SIGH* Oh well...
But, even if it isn't the brighest moon, it's still kinda cool that it's an event that won't occur again for a while (the entire set of events occuring in a 10 hour span) and hasn't occured in quite a while. Just happens to be there's nothing interesting to really watch...
It kinda reminds me of an event that took place one day at my house - a debugging party. I was showing off a game I had written, and was getting close to releasing a new version. A couple of my friends hadn't seen it, so, I set down and showed it off to them. I let one of the guys play it, and noticed an area where it slowed down a bit too much...
We spent hours all of us staring at the screen, finding places that the code could have been a little more efficent, etc.
It worked out great, really. I don't think I would want to program like that all the time, but, it's a great way to discuss the code all at once, what the function of a piece of code is, etc. and come up with ways to re-optimize things. I figure before my next release I'll go down to the liquor store and buy some Zima and some beer, and have another debug party:-)
That poor thing wouln't last five minutes in my house - especially if it came in contact with my bedroom! Hmm - I can see this thing fitted with big ol' knobby tires to try and clean my house!
The Mindstorms are a good idea, but there's one downside... I know I'm not a 'typical' geek for the most part, but, I know I couldn't leave the Lego's alone long enough for it to get any cleaning done. I'd have it assembled, let it start doing it's thing, see a way to improve it, etc. That process could go on forever!
I wouldn't call it a firestorm - no flameage involved coming from me. Just lots o' questions. I've been waiting for something like this to come along that can handle transcribing a conversation. I've got more than one application I'd love to use it for - most of the pretty fluff, mind you, and none of them professional.
Of course, in the end, this thing is going to be outside of my price range (if available at all to 'consumer level' people) based on what it's for.
I can keep dreaming I suppose:-)
As for Open Source - it's a valid question to ask about any product any more, but, doesn't mean that it HAS to be Open Source to be useable.
Even at 3x realtime, I could probably live with working with it based on what I saw on the pages. I'd have to record everything to wav's first, then have one of my machines on the network handle processing it later.
This sounds like it's going to turn out to be quite the kick ass product!
I'll ask the same question the other guy did - Open Source, or proprietary? And in the future, can the SQL server be replaces with something else like MySQL, etc.? Heck, for that matter, got something that gives us even more information?
Hell, need a beta tester to do any stress testing on this puppy? I'm yer man!
Yes, you can have it done that way. Unluckly, if there's anything odd going on with the Cable line (which is most of the time) you get some really strange output from the CC information. My card and software does it, and from time to time it skips parts of words, inserts 'odd' characters, etc., etc., etc. So, you could set it up with the trigger text, but, the likelyhood of getting it to work right all the time is a bit low. (Just based on what I've seen - I'm sure it's different in other areas of the country.)
Wow - I looked at it, and well, it looks damned impressive to me! Of course - there's nothing to really see but the screen shots, and of course information about what it can do.
I'd love to see demos of this stuff - I could have this stuff filter the TV for news for me:-) Or even better - I'd never have to take down notes after GMing a gaming session - I'd just let this thing transcribe the session on the fly!
Of course, I'm figuring the software that does the speech to text and indexing probably doesn't run on plain ol' PC hardware with Windows 98 or NT loaded
Personally, I just signed it. It's worthwhile to me on a personal basis.
However, I can see part of the concerns that others may have. For information purposes, yeah, it's a lot cheaper to send un-manned missions to Mars to collect more data than we currently have.
But, depending on the scope of data to be collected, that may not be as feasable as one thinks at first. For instance - when something goes wrong with a piece of equiptment, like the Mars Rover, when it's dead, it's dead. Humans out there on Mars, on the other hand, can do a lot to fix problems like that. Great technology is no replacement for human inginuity when in the field.
Plus, look at the different options for data collection there. With the Mars Rover, it was a long drawn out process just to select, and drive to a single location. When you got there, well... there really wasn't that much the rover could do about it, except grab some very limited soil samples, and take pretty pictures. Humans, on the other hand, can continue an investigation MUCH farther. For example, if something interesting extended under a rock - no problem. The human picks it up, and examines under it.
There's so much more that a human can do, and given the lag in movement, the bandwidth restrictions, and the problems even a small fault can incur on unmanned missions sometimes, sending humans there could be a great option.
And, lets not forget the matter of human pride. We will have stepped on an alien planet for the first time. It would be great.
Wow. Talk about a short article. I was really hoping for more from that one! Anyone have some really good links to articles, interviews, etc. concerning Aibo, and it's creators?
Everything I have seen so far has been very interesting - including a nice article concerning how attached to an Aibo someone really can become (the writer had just sent his Aibo back to have it's legs fixed). I want more! (And I want the $2500 to blow on an Aibo, instead of my house or my computer hardware;-)
Slashdot Mirror
You did read the article wrong. CmdrTaco said that they were giving it away (in the free beer respect, not the free speech respect.) His comment on Open Source was that it was driving other Operating Systems to also be free - and asks the question of when will it finally become 'Free Speech' (IE - Open Sourced.)
The solution I found was that my day job supports the OSS development concept.
My day job involves working with PLC programming, MMI (ok, now called HMI) design and development. Ever since I've been there (6 years now) we've supported the Open Source theory on things - when we do a project, we give the customer the source code to the project when we are done. Note that we supported Open Source, not GPL
One development package that we use costs $7800 per development unit, and $3200 per runtime - and it's getting more expensive. So, I wrote up a very long proposal for a project called Jaguar HMI that explains what the GPL is, how it applies to us, and the benefits.
Less than a week later, development of Jaguar HMI became part of my job, along with setting up all the resources for the project, etc.
So, my suggestion is - look towards companies who have to rely on that particular type of software to survive. Once they see the benefits, and you sell them on yourself, it's possible to set up an arrangement like I have.
I can't decide - is this a good or bad thing? I mean, Bill G. was never THAT great of a software designer in the first place. Why not just consider retirement instead? What's worse - Bill running the entire company, and other's doing the job of design, or, Balmer running the company, and Bill getting his grubbies on to designing the overall systems concepts?
Plus, didn't he used to say that he could never see anyone above the age of 50 at the helm of MS? I thought Balmer was older than that 'limit'.
Speak for yourself on this one, Talisman. I'm engaged, so I get sex pretty much whenever. I've always had a very active sex life, dispite the fact I've been a hacker (not cracker) since age 12 back in the C64 & Vic20 eras.
Just because someone is a geek doesn't mean they don't have an active sexlife. Or even more - that they are interested in thier sexuality. I kinda think your thinking in terms of a steriotype that doesn't really exist.
If this is true - Big If - then this could really be a cool thing!
Of course, there are quite a few concerns here - how much of the system is being opened up? What license? Is this Free Speech AND Free Beer, or just Free Speech?
Personally, if the license only allowed people who purchased OS X to have access to the source, that would still be a damned cool thing, IMHO.
But, before I can get really excited about this, there needs to be more information. Right now, it's just a somewhat shapeless rumor. When Apple actually releases something, then everyone can comment on the real situation, instead of rumors. :-/
Wow - I've been complaining about the quality of /. reporting for a while now. I hate to say it but - this is one of the better pieces I've seen /. do in quite a while. The interview with the attourney was good, and I'm glad to see that /. followed up on the story to give us both sides of the story.
If this is an example of what /. reporting is going to look like in the future - the future looks good! Hats off to Rob & the gang!
As for what happened to them - well, there is some case here (microphones and cameras imbeded into other devices.) However, the question is - did they sell these as 'home security' devices, or evesdropping devices? That would seem to make a huge difference to me!
Not nessisary - if you look closer, it is actually an AC posting, and they just made the message look like it contained a /. header - but just above that, there's the normal header. Hemos's password hasn't been cracked :-) (Yet - I'm sure %&$^ will get arround to trying and succeeding someday.)
hehhee - That's one of my 'research projects' I've been working on for my little company.
Wouldn't it be great if the scripts and API were able to survive across platforms, multiple game versions, and even multiple games? IE - don't like the sniper rifle in UT? No problemo - just load in the Rail Gun from Quake III instead! Nice object oriented scripts that talk to a common API that more than one game uses. It's a great concept - I'm not so sure it's as good in execution.
The other thing is, that would allow mod developers to create 'universal' mods that work on more than one game. I find that to be a cool concept.
Of course, there's problems. Games are developed with a specific 'vision' behind them. Importing an object from a previous game or competing game may unbalance things considerably. However, that's not that big of a deal, in a way - in a situtation like online gaming where the server admin determins what stays and what goes, he is allowed to tweak the ballance however he wants.
The other problem is - even with a common API, how does that determine what the real effect of a weapon is going to be in future generations of games? IE - the new monster is immune to fire, but, the flamethrower from QIV only passes information in terms of damage, not in terms of fire damage. There's quite a few situations where this would simply screw up. (I've seen ways around quite a few of the issues - problem is, you have to continuously expand the API in an attempt to come up with all situations, or limit yourself to what the API supports in the next game. Both choices suck.)
One thing I've looked at was for 3D based stuff, just using the Crystal Space 3D engine. I put whatever I need that it doesn't alread support in there. I benefit from not having to develop and engine from scratch, and Crystal Space benefits from the stuff I add. Then I suppose the only thing I'm worrying about the rights to will be the actual gameplay, and the datafiles (art, music, levels, etc.). And of course, the upside is, it's nice and portable to just about everywhere.
However - that does mean a section is still closed - the actual gameplay (the 3D engine only does so much for you.) And that's only for 3D stuff. Any good 2D solutions out there that I don't know about?
This is a question I once tried to get posted as an "Ask Slashdot" - what does the Linux commmunity want from game developers?
For instance - it's pretty hard to release the entire commerical game as Open Source, and expect it to make money. I agree with RMS's "Free Speech" aspect, but, also realize that it's a business for making money. (I've got my own little game company, looking at doing more and more recently...) How should a game developer make the ballance between Open Source, and the business of making money based off of entertament value of the software produced?
Is there a good solution for game developers who want to start supporting Linux, who want to 'do the right thing' and start letting people get access to the source, without loosing tons of cash over it?
I saw GalaxyQuest last night with my fiance - we were dying laughing! It is a great spoof - to me, the best Star Trek & various S/F series spoof yet. I was never a fan of Space Balls - it forced every line to be a spoofed line from Star Wars. That's no fun to me. This managed to have some life of it's own. Really good movie, and for once, I agree with a /. movie review!
The answer of running Linux on a 386 w/4MB of RAM isn't a lie. However, I can understand your frustration here - that's the minimum it's gonna run on for doing something like a very simple router (heck, boot the thing off of a floppy - no need for a Hard Drive!) What do you want to do with the machine? I know you say you want a server for home, but, is that server going to be serving web pages, running Samba to act as a Win 95 file server, running a Quake III server from time to time, etc? Give more details about what you want to do - then you can get some better answers. It's not an insult, just wanting to be sure that people know what you are looking at doing with it, so that I or whoever else can give you some really good informed answers, instead of crap answers like "Oh, that old 386 will run it fine!" Anyway - give more info, and maybe people can give ya better answers more along the lines of what you are looking for.
Whoops - my bad. Yer right - it's non-fiction. I read the description of the book, but, didn't check that part of it. :-/
Naw - no need for flameage.
From what I gather, it's a fictional piece, dedicated to CmdrTaco and Hemos. The main characters in the book are Jessie and Eric - the /.'ers are Rob and Jeff.
I'm still trying to figure out what Katz would know about Geeks. His articles on here sure aren't a shining endorsement of his book...
Hehhehe - Ooops! I messed up on this one too - I took it at face value, and passed the same info on to my fiance. After all the times I've told people to check the facts before forwarding information, I end up doing it myself. *SIGH* Oh well...
But, even if it isn't the brighest moon, it's still kinda cool that it's an event that won't occur again for a while (the entire set of events occuring in a 10 hour span) and hasn't occured in quite a while. Just happens to be there's nothing interesting to really watch...
Midnight RyderIt kinda reminds me of an event that took place one day at my house - a debugging party. I was showing off a game I had written, and was getting close to releasing a new version. A couple of my friends hadn't seen it, so, I set down and showed it off to them. I let one of the guys play it, and noticed an area where it slowed down a bit too much...
We spent hours all of us staring at the screen, finding places that the code could have been a little more efficent, etc.
It worked out great, really. I don't think I would want to program like that all the time, but, it's a great way to discuss the code all at once, what the function of a piece of code is, etc. and come up with ways to re-optimize things. I figure before my next release I'll go down to the liquor store and buy some Zima and some beer, and have another debug party :-)
Midnight RyderThat poor thing wouln't last five minutes in my house - especially if it came in contact with my bedroom! Hmm - I can see this thing fitted with big ol' knobby tires to try and clean my house!
The Mindstorms are a good idea, but there's one downside... I know I'm not a 'typical' geek for the most part, but, I know I couldn't leave the Lego's alone long enough for it to get any cleaning done. I'd have it assembled, let it start doing it's thing, see a way to improve it, etc. That process could go on forever!
I wouldn't call it a firestorm - no flameage involved coming from me. Just lots o' questions. I've been waiting for something like this to come along that can handle transcribing a conversation. I've got more than one application I'd love to use it for - most of the pretty fluff, mind you, and none of them professional.
:-)
Of course, in the end, this thing is going to be outside of my price range (if available at all to 'consumer level' people) based on what it's for.
I can keep dreaming I suppose
As for Open Source - it's a valid question to ask about any product any more, but, doesn't mean that it HAS to be Open Source to be useable.
Even at 3x realtime, I could probably live with working with it based on what I saw on the pages. I'd have to record everything to wav's first, then have one of my machines on the network handle processing it later.
This sounds like it's going to turn out to be quite the kick ass product!
I'll ask the same question the other guy did - Open Source, or proprietary? And in the future, can the SQL server be replaces with something else like MySQL, etc.? Heck, for that matter, got something that gives us even more information?
Hell, need a beta tester to do any stress testing on this puppy? I'm yer man!
Yes, you can have it done that way. Unluckly, if there's anything odd going on with the Cable line (which is most of the time) you get some really strange output from the CC information. My card and software does it, and from time to time it skips parts of words, inserts 'odd' characters, etc., etc., etc. So, you could set it up with the trigger text, but, the likelyhood of getting it to work right all the time is a bit low. (Just based on what I've seen - I'm sure it's different in other areas of the country.)
Wow - I looked at it, and well, it looks damned impressive to me! Of course - there's nothing to really see but the screen shots, and of course information about what it can do.
:-) Or even better - I'd never have to take down notes after GMing a gaming session - I'd just let this thing transcribe the session on the fly!
I'd love to see demos of this stuff - I could have this stuff filter the TV for news for me
Of course, I'm figuring the software that does the speech to text and indexing probably doesn't run on plain ol' PC hardware with Windows 98 or NT loaded
Microsoft - I'm sorry, but, who the hell thought that up! Sounds well... bad.
Icom - Sounds like a miss spelling. Now a non-issue since Allen Bradly bought them out, then Rockwell Automation bought Allen Bradly, etc.
Wonderware. Produces MMI/SCADA and Industrial Automation stuff. What the hell were they smoking in California that night?!
Personally, I just signed it. It's worthwhile to me on a personal basis.
However, I can see part of the concerns that others may have. For information purposes, yeah, it's a lot cheaper to send un-manned missions to Mars to collect more data than we currently have.
But, depending on the scope of data to be collected, that may not be as feasable as one thinks at first. For instance - when something goes wrong with a piece of equiptment, like the Mars Rover, when it's dead, it's dead. Humans out there on Mars, on the other hand, can do a lot to fix problems like that. Great technology is no replacement for human inginuity when in the field.
Plus, look at the different options for data collection there. With the Mars Rover, it was a long drawn out process just to select, and drive to a single location. When you got there, well... there really wasn't that much the rover could do about it, except grab some very limited soil samples, and take pretty pictures. Humans, on the other hand, can continue an investigation MUCH farther. For example, if something interesting extended under a rock - no problem. The human picks it up, and examines under it.
There's so much more that a human can do, and given the lag in movement, the bandwidth restrictions, and the problems even a small fault can incur on unmanned missions sometimes, sending humans there could be a great option.
And, lets not forget the matter of human pride. We will have stepped on an alien planet for the first time. It would be great.
Wow. Talk about a short article. I was really hoping for more from that one! Anyone have some really good links to articles, interviews, etc. concerning Aibo, and it's creators?
;-)
Everything I have seen so far has been very interesting - including a nice article concerning how attached to an Aibo someone really can become (the writer had just sent his Aibo back to have it's legs fixed). I want more! (And I want the $2500 to blow on an Aibo, instead of my house or my computer hardware